Gamebook
A gamebook is a work of printed fiction that allows the reader to participate in the story by making choices. The narrative branches along various paths, typically through the use of numbered paragraphs or pages. Each narrative typically does not follow paragraphs in a linear or ordered fashion. Gamebooks are sometimes called choose your own adventure books or CYOA or pick-a-paths. Gamebooks influenced hypertext fiction.
Production of new gamebooks in the West decreased dramatically during the 1990s as choice-based stories have moved away from print-based media, although the format may be experiencing a resurgence on mobile and ebook platforms. Such digital gamebooks are considered interactive fiction or visual novels.
Description
Gamebooks range widely in terms of the complexity of the game aspect. At one end are the branching-plot novels, which require the reader to make choices but are otherwise like regular novels.At the other end of the spectrum are what amounts to "solitaire RPG adventures" or "adventure gamebooks", which emulate a tabletop RPG in novel form and feature sophisticated rules for battling monsters and overcoming obstacles. The story can be decided by factors other than the reader's choices, such as dice rolls, the lack of equipment or other items, or by various statistics, such as running out of health points.
The latter style is most commonly associated with the British Fighting Fantasy franchise, which originated, codified, and popularised much of the more advanced format that many later gamebooks would follow. CYOA and FF are the two most popular, successful, and enduring gamebook franchises of all time, rendering them the archetypes of their respective, clashing styles and positions on the complexity spectrum. Later series like Lone Wolf and Fabled Lands, typically from Britain, would take the FF formula and push the limits of what could be achieved with printed text narratives.
In all gamebooks, the story is presented as a series of sections of printed text. These are often but not always numbered. Branching-plot novel sections often run to several pages in length, whereas solitaire and adventure gamebook sections are usually no longer than a paragraph or two. These are not intended to be read in order. Instead, at the end of a text section, the reader is typically given a choice of narrative branches that they may follow. Each branch contains a reference to the number of the paragraph or page that should be read next if that branch is chosen. The narrative thus does not progress linearly through the book or follow the paragraphs in numerical order. The story continues this way until a paragraph or page which ends that branch of the story. Many solitaire or adventure gamebooks feature a single "successful" ending, and the remainder are "failures". Thus, a gamebook becomes a "puzzle" since only a few or even one branching paths lead to victory. Branching plot novels, on the other hand, tend to be more concerned with narrative resolution rather than winning or losing, thus often have several endings which may be deemed equally "successful".
Gamebooks are typically written in the second person with the reader assuming the role of a character to experience the world from that character's point of view.
Many gamebooks form series with a common theme, trade dress, and/or ruleset. While each book is typically a stand-alone narrative, there are gamebook series such as Steve Jackson's Sorcery! that continue the narrative from the previous books in the series.
History
Origins
There are several examples of early works of art with branching narratives. The romantic novel Consider the Consequences! by Doris Webster and Mary Alden Hopkins was published in the United States in 1930, and boasts "a dozen or more" different endings depending on the "taste of the individual reader". The 1936 play Night of January 16th by Ayn Rand, about a trial, is unusual in that members of the audience are chosen to play the jury and deliver a verdict, which then influences the play's ending: guilty or not guilty.Also quite early on, the possibility of having stories branching out into several different paths was suggested by Jorge Luis Borges in his short story "An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain". This story features an author whose novel is a three-part story containing two branch points, and with nine possible endings. Another story by Borges, titled "The Garden of Forking Paths", also describes a book with a maze-like narrative, which may have inspired the gamebook form. The children's book Treasure Hunt, published in 1945 in Britain under the name of "Alan George", is another early example of a story with multiple paths for the reader to follow.
Programmed learning materials have been recognized as an early influence on the development of branching path books. This learning method was first applied in the TutorText series of interactive textbooks, published from the late 1950s up until the early 1970s. These books present the reader with a series of problems related to a particular area of study, allowing him or her to choose among several possible answers. If the answer to a problem is correct, the reader moves on to the next problem. If the answer is incorrect, the reader is given feedback and is asked to pick a different answer. This educational technique would form a basis for many later narrative gamebook series.
During the 1960s, authors from several different countries started experimenting with fiction that contained multiple paths and/or endings. Some literary works in this vein include the French-language novel L'ironie du sort by Paul Guimard, the Spanish-language novels Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar and Juego de cartas by Max Aub, and the works of the French literary group known as the Oulipo. Other early experiments include the short stories "Alien Territory" and "The Lost Nose: a Programmed Adventure" by John Sladek, the novel The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles, and the collection of short stories titled Tante storie per giocare by Italian author Gianni Rodari.
Although the latter experimented with the format of engaging the reader through a second-person perspective or branching narratives, the 1960s and '70s also saw the publication of several books from across Europe that met the criteria for gamebooks as understood today, and prior to the Choose Your Own Adventure series. The earliest of these was Lucky Les by British author E.W. Hildick, which has been called "likely the first fully-fledged gamebook" as it comports entirely with the standards later expected by readers, and self-identified in its blurb as a game in book form. Other early innovators included State of Emergency by Dennis Guerrier and Joan Richards, the Swedish-language book Den mystiska påsen by Betty Orr-Nilsson, and the French-language book Histoires comme tu voudras by Marie-Christine Helgerson, among others. Despite their relative lack of involvement, compared to British and American authors, in gamebooks as a cultural phenomenon, French authors and their experimental novels were nonetheless prominent in the format's precursors and embryonic stages.
Breakthroughs and popularization
In the US, The Adventures of You series appeared in 1976–77, with two titles that would later become part of the groundbreaking Choose Your Own Adventure series: Sugarcane Island by Edward Packard and Journey Under the Sea by R. A. Montgomery.Tabletop role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons were another early influence that would contribute in major ways to the development of the gamebook form. The first module which combined a branching-path narrative with a set of role-playing game rules was Buffalo Castle for the Tunnels & Trolls system. Buffalo Castle was innovative for its time, as it allowed the reader to experience a role-playing session without need for a referee. It has been followed by many other solitaire adventures for the T&T system, as well as solos for other tabletop role-playing games.
The first commercially successful series of gamebooks was the Choose Your Own Adventure series establishing the "American" gamebook tradition. The "British" tradition, as exemplified by the Fighting Fantasy series, was, by contrast, slightly younger. British gamebooks differ from the American tradition by having rules more strongly influenced by the game mechanics of roleplaying games.
The US (late 1970s–)
The Adventures of You, a two-book series, authored by Edward Packard and R.A. Montgomery and initially published by Vermont Crossroads Press, laid much of the groundwork for the later surge in popularity of the gamebook format. Sugarcane Island by Edward Packard was written in 1969 but did not see publication until 1976. This became a series when Journey Under the Sea by R. A. Montgomery was published in 1977. Two standalone gamebooks authored by Packard would follow, both published by Lippincott: Deadwood City and The Third Planet from Altair. While these early efforts apparently achieved some popularity with readers, they still did not have a publisher with the marketing strength required to make them available to mass audiences.Packard and Montgomery took the idea of publishing interactive books to Bantam, and thus the Choose Your Own Adventure series was born in 1979, beginning with The Cave of Time. The series became immensely popular worldwide and several titles were translated into more than 25 languages. The series reached the peak of its popularity with children in the 1980s. It was during this period that Bantam released several other interactive series to capitalize on the popularity of the medium. Many other American publishers released their own series to compete with CYOA.
One of the most popular competitors seems to have been TSR, who released several branching-path novels based on their own role-playing games. The most famous TSR series was Endless Quest. Another strong competitor was Ballantine with their Find Your Fate series, which featured adventures in the Indiana Jones, James Bond and Doctor Who universes. Famous author R. L. Stine wrote several books for this line, including The Badlands of Hark, as well as for other series such as Wizards, Warriors and You. Several Choose your Own Adventure spin-offs and many competing series were translated into other languages.